by T. S. Joyce
“Shot you?”
“With a motherfucking silver bullet.”
“Oh my God! How did you survive that?”
Levi shrugged. “Dumb luck, I guess. Or I was just so stubborn. My body pushed that bullet right out of me, and Rush stood over me calling me a wuss and asked if I was gonna cry. Did he need to get me a box of Kleenexes, blah blah blah.”
“He sounds terrible.”
“He was. Until…about one year into my training. I was recovering from a big fight with him. Hadn’t made a noise, just fought silently the night before and then Changed back without showing pain because I was so damn shut down, running on autopilot. I didn’t really feel the hurt anymore. It was dinnertime, and all we ever cooked was food to put muscle on me. He came into my room and said, ‘Dinner, clean up.’ So I did, but he wasn’t at the dining table when I walked into the kitchen. He was waiting outside by his truck. Said, ‘Get in.’ Now, a big part of me thought this is it. He’s going to kill me now. Because that’s what it felt like he was doing most days. Instead, he drove me into town. I thought, okay, we’re going for more groceries and supplies. That’s the only reason we ever went into town. But nope, he pulled into the parking lot of this buffet, all you can eat home cookin’ place called Arnold’s All You Can Eat. And before we went in, he sat there, gripping the steering wheel, and said, ‘You finally got there, didn’t you?’ I asked what he meant, and he said, ‘You ain’t even limping anymore. Or pulling a face when you open up a cut. You don’t feel pain anymore, do you?’ I told him, ‘I guess not.’ And he said, ‘Boy, you done good. Your real training starts now.’ And that night, after we ate until our bellies couldn’t hold any more, he told me he was proud of me on the way home. Said he hadn’t ever been proud of anyone and to enjoy the compliment because I would never get one from him again. But he lied. From then on, he told me if I did good. And I worked harder for him because I could see him changing and softening, too. But that was my favorite memory. It was when the tide changed. Training didn’t feel like dying anymore.” Levi shrugged up his shoulders. “Felt like living.”
Marissa slid her feet to his and hugged his ankles with hers under the table. “You’re very special,” she murmured.
“Nah, I’m just—”
“No. Don’t throw away what I’m saying. Listen. Absorb it. How many would do what you’ve done? Grey asked you for a favor, and it was a huge one. The cost could’ve been your life, and you did it. And you went through awful things people can’t even imagine, on purpose, to help Grey and to steady your wolf.”
“Those weren’t the biggest reasons, Marissa. I wanted to become a wall that no one could get through. I wanted you on the safe side of that wall, where you could be free to live a happy life. I wanted to make it to where anyone who fell to the wrong side of that wall knew better than to aim at you, or they would die. Everyone we come into contact with from here on has a choice. They get to choose a side of the wall.”
Marissa got up and made her way over to him, sat on the bench, and melted against his side. He pulled her in close and rested his cheek against the top of her head.
“Then you can see why I think you’re so special,” she told him.
“It’s your turn now,” he said, pulling her food across the table and settling it in front of her. “What is your favorite memory of the last two years?”
She grinned because this was an easy one. “Today.”
“What?”
“Today is my favorite memory, and we’re not even done making it. Taco night outside a food truck, wearing my favorite hoodie and booty shorts, with a handsome man who fucked me silly right beforehand.”
She thought he would say her memory wasn’t fair and make her choose another one, but he didn’t. He let it ride, and from the grin on his face and the slight color in his cheeks, he was happy she’d chosen tonight. “You’re gonna make me soft with your compliments. Eat.”
She took a bite and gulped it down. “Do you think I’ll ever meet Rush?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
“Really?”
“He knows who you are. He wants to meet you when you’re ready.”
“I’m ready. I want to meet everyone who is important to you. How does he know about me?”
Levi became very busy eating his tacos. He downed three before he tried to change the subject. “Perfect weather tonight.”
“Boooooring. How? I’m just going to stare at you and ask you over and over until you answer the question.”
His sigh tapered into a growl. “Because I accidentally said your name when I was delirious after a fight once. Six months in, and Rush used you to whoop me. ‘What would Marissa think about a pussy-boy like you? She deserves better than some half-cocked pup who can’t even protect his own neck.’ And a whole slew of other shit constructed just to piss me off and rile up my wolf.”
“Sounds like he’ll love me,” she said dryly.
“He will.” Levi grinned. “You were his biggest weapon in training me.”
“This is all so messed up.”
He shrugged up one shoulder. “I know what happened to you with your maker, remember? We match.”
Well, that drew her up. He was right. They’d both been built differently, but in a way they could both understand each other’s damage. In a way they could both truly see the other and not be put-off by their reactions to anything. He’d gone and damaged himself into the puzzle piece that fit her.
She wanted to cry and laugh and hug him and run and eat twenty more tacos and kiss him all at once.
She’d always, always, thought the love story of the Silver Wolf Clan belonged to Grey and Morgan, but now she wasn’t so sure.
Now her story felt important, too.
Chapter Nine
Marissa typed in Cassian’s number from the business card he’d given her.
Last night had been too perfect to have this hanging over her head.
I’ve made my choice. I choose love. I have no interest in a bond with you, but thank you for the offer. I’m promised to someone else. Send.
“You aren’t her.”
Marissa gasped and dropped her cell phone onto the bed. Leaning against the dresser was the vampire of her nightmares. He looked the same as when he’d bitten her all those years ago. He had the same empty black eyes and the same hairstyle, short on the sides and gelled up. He wore dark gray dress pants and a light blue shirt, the top button undone. His skin was pale as snow, and his mouth was still set in the same grim line on his clean-shaven face.
“Larius,” she whispered.
A smile curved his lips and then disappeared instantly. “You aren’t her,” he repeated. “But my heart doesn’t understand that. Or whatever used to be my heart.” He stood up straight and picked her ripped panties off the ground. He stood there frozen, staring at them for a few moments before he set them on the bed and looked at her. “I can feel a difference in you. I don’t like it. Don’t like the way it feels. You are farther away from me now.”
“Levi will be here any second,” she assured him, drawing the blanket over her bare breasts.
“He’s getting you breakfast. Thoughtful of him. You deserve someone thoughtful. He’s been a good watchdog.”
She swallowed hard. “What do you want?”
“I want you to be her. I want everything to make sense again. I want to stop feeling tortured. I want eggplant parmigiana for lunch. I want more returns on my investments. I want you to be her,” he said again. “I want so many things. Some more than others.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“I was married once. Me. Can you imagine? It took me two hundred years to choose a wife. Do you know how hard it is for a vampire to bond to anything? To anyone?”
She shook her head.
“Nearly impossible. People are temporary, and loyalty is so rare. But when we do choose, it’s an unbreakable bond. I was with Sable for two hundred perfect years. She tried to help an
enemy. She pitied the werewolves and was killed by my best friend. Just for doing what she thought was right. Losing her was worse than a thousand deaths. And then, many, many years later, she was reborn.” He gestured to Marissa and sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress barely moved under his weight, as if he was an apparition. As if he was a dream.
“I’m Marissa. I’m not your dead wife.”
He twitched his fingers, and a tank top floated from her open suitcase on the floor to neatly fold itself beside her.
Chills rippled up her spine, and her chest cavity flooded with fear. She didn’t want to touch that fabric. It stank of dark magic.
“You’ve been reopening my bite,” she whispered in a trembling voice.
Larius’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“It bleeds. And I see you in my dreams. I see you in visions. Awful visions. I know it’s you messing with my head.”
He sat there, a frozen statue, skin as white as marble, eyes full of fury. “That wasn’t me. Marissa Henry, the only thing that keeps you safe is staying with the Silver Wolf Clan. You’ve been gone from them for too long.”
“I just left the pack yesterday.”
“It’s too long!” His voice echoed through the room. He let off a long, steadying sigh that morphed into a hiss. He cocked his head and looked at the front door of the hotel room. “Here comes your watchdog. Stay near your pack, or you will lose everything and everyone you love. That’s what I negotiated. Stay, doggy.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because once upon a time, I couldn’t protect Sable. And that failure has haunted me for a century.” He shook his head slowly. “Don’t add to my ghosts.”
He disappeared in a cloud of thick purple smoke, but his whisper echoed throughout the room, “If you’re ever near death, call my name.”
The door swung open, and Levi looked around the room, nostrils flaring as he scented the air. “Where is he?”
“He just disappeared,” she said, waving her hand at the dissipating purple smoke. Gross.
Levi set a bag of breakfast beside her on the bed and did a thorough search of the rooms. “I could sense him from down the street. What did he want?”
“To tell me to stay near the pack or everyone will die. It wasn’t exactly a message of peace.” Her hands were shaking badly as she reached for the bag that smelled like ham and cheese croissants.
Levi’s gaze fell to her hands, and the anger softened in his eyes. “Hey,” he said, sitting next to her on the bed. He pulled her against him. “It’s okay. We’ll go home and call a pack meeting and figure this all out.”
She nodded, but it didn’t feel like that. It didn’t feel like anything was going to be okay.
Larius knew more than he’d let on. More about the building storm. If he wasn’t the one in her head, she had a dark guess who was. Aelred the Evil. The Ancient One. The one the old legend books talked about. The one who had started the human wars against the Silver Wolves all that time ago and led the attack on all who remained. The one who tracked down every straggler and killed them. Men, women, children—no one had been safe from his wrath as long as their wolves bore white fur.
The one who slaughtered the Silver Wolves in that killing field.
This whole time she’d thought it was Larius messing with her, but this realization made things ten times more terrifying.
Her pack was being hunted.
Rage filled her slowly as she held onto Levi. “We need to go home.”
Chapter Ten
Levi could smell her fear, and from the bright gold in Grey’s darting eyes, he could, too.
She sat at the end of the sprawling dining table in Grey’s house, shredding a sheet of yellow ruled paper she’d ripped off a notepad.
Dean had brought his entire pack for this meeting. Logan had sat down beside Marissa, with Morgan on her other side, before Levi had even gotten to the house after cleaning up at his cattleman’s cabin on the east side of the property.
“It’s okay,” Logan murmured to Marissa.
Her cheeks were rosy as she glanced up at the wolf who was paying her way too much attention. She lowered her gaze again. “I want to sit with Levi.”
Dean, Rachel, Sarah, Wade, Brent, Jason, Logan, Grey, Morgan, Lana, Thorne, and even the Silver Wolf toddler, Delilah, froze.
“Why?” Logan asked loudly.
Marissa lifted her chin and glared at Logan. “Because he’s mine.”
“What in the hell?” Brent exclaimed through a bright grin as he looked from Logan to Dean to Levi and back to Marissa.
The murmur of everyone became deafening, and then Levi snarled as he pulled Logan’s chair back too hard, nearly toppling it.
“Move,” he told Logan.
“But you mean yours as like…your bodyguard…right?” Logan asked.
“No, that’s not what I mean,” Marissa deadpanned. Atta girl.
“Move, or I’ll remove you,” Levi murmured.
Whatever Logan saw in his face, he didn’t question whether Levi would, in fact, remove him. He simply stood and muttered, “What in the hell is happening right now?”
Grey cleared his throat and nodded to Levi. He didn’t miss the smile on that golden-eyed werewolf’s face. He was the biggest, scariest cheerleader ever.
Levi took a seat and dragged Marissa’s chair closer to him, then slipped his hand to her thigh and reveled in her fading tension as her muscles went slack. He had that effect on her, and now he was the one biting back a big dumbass grin.
She’d really just told both packs she was claimed. By him.
Logan is watching us. His eyes are too light. If he lunges, we kill him. Dean is smiling, so is Sarah, Morgan, Grey, and Lana. Rachel still looks shocked but not aggressive. Brent is clapping too loud. Outside there are three birds in the tree nearest the house, and the wind has picked up. The tire swing is creaking loudly. We need to cut it down on the way out. Do we have the knife?
Levi gritted his teeth and patted the back of his belt where both a knife and a wooden steak were tucked securely into a custom sheath.
Good. Marissa smells like fear, but not as much.
The meeting had begun. Levi had to shake his head to focus on what Grey was saying instead of the running commentary of the wolf in his head.
“I think they’re planning something. There are too many things that seem to be herding us toward something I don’t understand. My wolf is on alert all the time. When I Change, I sense a heaviness in the woods that wasn’t there before. Something’s happening.”
“Are they after Marissa?” Jason asked. “I don’t understand why it’s happening now. The vamps left us alone for years after Morgan had Thorne. We expected an attack then, you know? We were ready for it, but then all the threats from the vampires just stopped after Marissa was…you know.”
“Bitten?” Morgan asked. “You can say the word.”
“Okay, yeah, bitten,” Jason ground out. “He already claimed you, or linked himself to you, or whatever! It’s pretty weird timing that as soon as she finally, finally, claims a mate, the vampire threat is here again. It’s Larius. Maybe we should send Marissa to the care of a bigger pack.”
“A bigger pack than both Dallas packs?” Levi growled.
“Yeah! If that Cassian alpha wants to protect her, let him,” Jason murmured, looking down.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Levi asked. “You think separating the packs is the way to keep the vampires at bay? That’s how they hunt!”
“Yeah?” Logan asked. “And you’re a pro at vampires now?”
“He is, actually,” Grey said in a soft, dangerous voice. We aren’t sending Marissa to a stranger’s pack for some second-rate protection from a bunch of wolves who don’t know her and who have no reason to keep her safety a priority over theirs. Mention sending her away one more time, Jason, and Levi can have you.”
“Yeah, cause Levi’s so scary,” Logan murmured, leaning back in his chair and crossing his
massive arms over his chest.
Kill him.
It was Marissa who belted out a laugh. “Oh, my God, you all want to do a pissing contest now? First off, it’s not your fucking choice to send me away or keep me. Second, your alpha is looking at you like he’s going to fucking throttle you the second this meeting is over.” She pointed to her adopted father, Dean. “Third, what would be the point of separating me from here? From my home and the people I love? Honestly, I’m curious.”
“It’s not about you,” Jason said low, his face tilted, his eyes downcast, his thick neck exposed. “It’s about keeping the cubs safe. None of us asked for this responsibility—keeping them safe. But when Morgan became a Silver Wolf, we decided as a makeshift family that no matter what, she and the cubs have to be protected. You’re grown now, Marissa, and you have the offer of the biggest pack in North America to protect you. Take Levi with you, I don’t give a fuck.”
Levi looked over at Lana. Ten years old and still human but with Morgan’s Silver Wolf genetics. She would be Turned at some point. They just hadn’t figured out if it would be willingly or not. He looked at Thorne. Five years old with a crop of black hair and those light blue eyes of the Silver Wolf that lived inside him. He already Changed into his white wolf every week. He couldn’t help it. And Delilah, Grey and Morgan’s toddler girl. She had brown hair like Grey’s and light purple eyes like Morgan’s Silver Wolf. She hadn’t Changed yet, but when she did, she would be white as snow. And Morgan, her belly swollen with the child she was growing inside of her. The entire existence of this clan depended on them.
“I’m not bitter about you choosing a mate,” Jason said. “I’m not bitter about how fucking long I’ve waited for you to choose me or to choose Logan. Not bitter about how much time we wasted waiting for you to pick—”